Trying to own the recent BlackBerry Bold 9900 for T-Mobile can literally zap your wallet out of all your money, especially when it’s priced exorbitantly at $299.99. Similar to what we find in the past, that’s where RIM’s beloved Curve line comes to mind as it bears all of the wonderful functionality found with its brethren – while being priced on the affordable side. Continuing the trend, the BlackBerry Curve 9360 packs all of the typical incremental upgrades over its predecessor, but will it be able to establish itself now that we’ve spoiled by some of RIM’s current generation smartphones?

The package contains:

RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360

Stereo headphones

microUSB cable

Wall Charger

Quick Start Guide

Safety and Product Information

Design:

Retaining all of the design characteristics that are akin to the long standing line, it’s undeniably a Curve device from a cursory look. However, what’s new and surprisingly refreshing about it all is that it sports a considerably thinner chassis at 0.43” thick – thus, making it compact in form. Even though it still utilizes a glossy plastic exterior, which easily scratches in the rear, we do like the subtle refinement of it offering a spiffy looking gunmetal bezel. Additionally, its choice of materials allow it to feel extremely lightweight in the hand. We can’t help but think about the Curve 8900, with its good looks and all, but the Curve 9360 manages to take the cake with its razor sharp appearance.

The RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360 sports a very thin chassis at 0.43” thick

Seeing the first visual improvement right away, it features a slightly larger 2.44” TFT display with a higher resolution of 480 x 360 – versus the QVGA resolution of the Curve 3G. Combining its size and resolution, it results in 246 ppi, allowing it to produce plenty of details to make fine text easily visible from a good distance. Furthermore, colors are crisp and deep in tone to perfectly complement its already nice looks. Throw in some good viewing angles and high brightness output, it’s more than equipped at lighting up the room.

Faithful to its siblings, we find the optical track pad and BlackBerry buttons below its display. Needless to say, navigation is easily accomplished with the use of the trackpad, however, the physical buttons are a bit too stiff for our liking.

Unmistakably, it’s easily established from afar that it’s a Curve handset of some sort due to the distinguishable keyboard it’s using. As usual, we’re greeted with the same layout used by its predecessors, which also consists of those tough plastic buttons that are rather tiny in size. Overall, its cramped confines and stiff response definitely limits our rate – though, some patience can eventually make the experience tolerable. We’re definitely more conscious on our typing compared to the Bold 9900. Not only are buttons smaller in size, but we’re required to firmly press down a key in order for it to register. Again, it’s not entirely bad as long as you have some patience.

We’re greeted with the same keyboard layout used by its predecessors

On its sides, we find a microUSB port for charging/data connectivity, 3.5mm headset jack, stiff feeling lock button, right convenience key, and volume rocker. Meanwhile, there’s a 5-megapixel snapper in the rear along with its LED flash nearby as the “Curve” branding and speakerphone notch sit squarely in the middle. Finally, pulling off the plastic rear cover provides us access to its SIM card slot, tiny 1,000 mAh battery, and microSD card slot.

13 Comments

Display mode:

1.Casey (unregistered)

You report all those minuses and STILL it receives an EIGHT? What does it have to do to get a seven then? Good God...if it was a Nokia with all those minuses you would have prolly given it a -1 and would have made a video of how you run it over with a tank...

Well, the Blackberry Bold 9900 is selling at a nice rate, surprisingly ($300 dollars for something the HTC Sensation offers at $200... oy vey). So if the Bold is selling with THAT price tag, then the Curve will definitely sell. I can't wait to see what QNX will look like!
But with QNX, does this mean that Blackberry is over?

Best Buy is offering the 9850 at $99 and the 9930 (Sprint) for $199. The 9930 opened at $249. In another month, with all of the competing announcements from Apple and Android, the only way to get mind-share will be to drop the price.

9.mazhar_noor_ (unregistered)

.hello..I am from India....I want to buy a BLackberry smartphone...please tell me which 1 is btr BB Bold3 9780 or BB curve 9360..as curve features BB OS 7 and Bold features BB OS 6.which one is btr of the two for taking photos as curve does not have auto focus...kindly tell me anyone...

10.mazhar_noor_ (unregistered)

.hello..I am from India....I want to buy a BLackberry smartphone...please tell me which 1 is btr BB Bold3 9780 or BB curve 9360..as curve features BB OS 7 and Bold features BB OS 6.which one is btr of the two for taking photos as curve does not have auto focus...kindly tell me anyone...

11.aslpin (unregistered)

Blackberry hasn't impressed me with their Curve series. It's already free in some retail stores. I'm a huge fan of the bold 9930, but I agree that we're paying more than what we get at $199.99-$249.99. It needs to drop to at least $99.99 for me to consider. Right now I'm happy with my epic touch, but BB's keyboard is just butter on toast, Delicious!

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